Shlomi Shaban on creativity, routine, and the show he has dreamed of staging

Shlomi Shaban, 49, a Tel Aviv-based singer, musician and pianist, says he now works every day from a studio away from home, a routine he adopted 11 years ago when his eldest son, Nuri, was born. The married father of Nuri, 11, and Luka, 7, is also the artistic director of the Israeli Opera’s “Reflections” series.

In a profile-style interview, Shaban said he wakes at 5:40 a.m. to run before his family gets up, drinks his first coffee standing by the espresso machine, and then keeps drinking coffee throughout the day. He joked that he always sleeps in socks because he cannot stand a bedsheet touching his bare foot. Among the advice that stayed with him, he cited a saying attributed to Cher’s mother, that if something will not matter in 10 years, it does not matter now, and another from Rita’s mother, that if someone says no, ask again in slightly different words.

Shaban said his most anticipated project is a special late-June production at the Israeli Opera. On June 29, “Karen Ann Sings Serge Gainsbourg” will be staged there, with Karen Ann coming to Israel specifically for the show, the Jerusalem Camerata Orchestra performing, and the Bat Kol Choir singing. He said he had long dreamed of bringing Gainsbourg’s album “Melody Nelson” to the stage, and that the performance will open with the full album before moving on to highlights from Gainsbourg and Karen Ann.

He also said he has felt blocked creatively since the Oct. 7 attacks, adding that after a burst of productivity four years ago in Berlin, when he wrote about 15 English songs for a musical with director Yael Ronen, “since then it has not returned.” He said he misses the period before the war, which he described as complicated but, in hindsight, more innocent, and said he is still trying to find his way back to writing as both an artist and an Israeli citizen.